


The Downfall of My Many Hours

by sariagray



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Murder, Suicide, Vomiting, erotic asphyxiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:10:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto has killed people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Downfall of My Many Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by analineblue. Takes place post "Adam."

Ianto has killed people. Women. Women like Toshiko and Gwen, and when he sees them now it makes him feel like he’s going to be sick. 

A part of him insists that he couldn’t actually do it. He couldn’t even shoot Lisa after she’d been converted. He’d risked his life for Toshiko in the Beacons and still feels guilty for ripping Gwen’s jacket on a mission over a month ago. ( _Ianto the Ripper_ , he thinks with a silent, shuddering laugh.) And then a part of him hates every woman for breathing when Lisa had to use a machine that did the work for her. That’s why he strangles them. Because they _breathe_. So, yes, maybe he is more than capable. He clenches his fingers.

His thoughts are jumbled, and only brief snatches of memory are accessible. Rain and the whispering sound of wind in his ears that could be words; admonishments or encouragements, he isn’t sure. Their necks are so small, so warm through his gloves, and their eyes are wide. He thinks he might be saving them from the horrors of the world, or sending them to the darkness of hereafter. They are nothing but playmates for Suzie, companions for Lisa, distractions for Jack.

There have always been times that he’s imagined appalling scenarios. “What if I just drove through this barrier and off a cliff? Just cut the wheel left and accelerated?” He’d let the images play out in his mind as he carefully rounded the bend, the consummate driver. Or, “What if I just stepped closer to this ledge and veered off?” Or, “What if I let the knife slip and cut off my finger?”

This isn’t like that, though. This is more than the twisted rambling daydreams of a dark mind. This is fact that he can’t source, feelings he remembers but can’t quite recall. The snippets intersperse with swarms of metal balls that shoot fiery electric-like beams into his arm. He knows the sting of those lasers the same way he knows the sharpness of manicured nails digging through his gloves in an attempt to force him to let go.

He doesn’t tell Jack, because Jack’s forgiveness must be worn threadbare by now, like the elbows of his coat. He doesn’t tell anyone else, because he still isn’t sure they’ve completely forgiven him for Lisa, even though so much time has passed.

He hopes it’s something he’s touched. A device in the archives that he’d put away a bit carelessly that somehow lets him experience the memories of another. Something as innocuous and terrifying as that, maybe.

_Remember_ , he tells himself. _Remember_. 

His inner voice sounds strange to him, higher-pitched and sharply accented.

In any case, remembering doesn’t work, not the way he wants it to. He tugs on the stitched satin edge of the sheet, runs the smoothness between his thumb and forefinger. It’s cool and slippery. ( _Sometimes, he presses his lips to their necks to feel their pulse drain away, washed out by the rain and the strength of his fingers._ ) The flat is cold, but Ianto feels feverish where the linens touch his skin. It’s a bit like being on fire. ( _‘They’ll come for you.’ That’s what he’d told Owen, whose arms were full of packets and hypodermic needles. Then they burned his eyes and laughed like children._ )

He lets his mind slip until he can identify the strangeness of it all; the way it seems as though he’s remembering the act of remembering, rather than the events themselves. He’s looking through a foggy window at these recollections, and they’re a long way off. Maybe they don’t even belong to him at all.

Jack groans in his sleep and Ianto receives a half-hearted knee to his thigh. It doesn’t hurt. Jack’s flesh feels cold against him, too, and then warm, and then cold again. Ianto presses the heel of his right foot to Jack’s ankle to feel the play of temperature across his skin. It’s oddly reassuring, like watching the rise and fall of someone’s chest. ( _Until it stops, blissfully still for eternity, and the body is only ever going to be cold now._ ) 

“Hello,” Jack will say in the morning, his eyes sleepy and his smile soft. “Sleep well?”

And Ianto will say yes, thank you, even though Jack will know that he’s lying. His eyes will be red and dark, and his skin grey-pale, and his lower lip bitten raw. Jack will worry during breakfast (cereal, or just coffee, or maybe a full fry-up if Jack thinks the blame for Ianto’s sleeplessness lies with him) and try not to ask questions.

By the time they arrive at the Hub, Ianto will have admitted to nightmares (which isn’t entirely untrue) and Jack will be sympathetic. He’ll say something like, “You should’ve woken me up” and Ianto will feel guilty for a few days until he forgets again.

He knows that this will happen because it has happened already. Three other times in the past five weeks.

And then he forgets until, unexpectedly, he remembers again.

The first time Ianto remembered, Jack was beneath him, making some whimpering, keening sound, and then the memory flourished briefly, like a star going supernova. Then Jack was coming, his ragged voice shouting something that sounded like “Yes,” but the sibilant sounds leaked past his lips strangely. Ianto looked down to see his own night-pale hands around Jack’s throat.

Jack had seemed pleased. His eyes were wide and he was smiling something equally sweet and seductive. Ianto had fled to the bathroom and vomited up dinner and also possibly bits of his stomach lining. He’d come back muttering something about food poisoning and stuck to the very edge of the bed. Jack had left him alone and never mentioned any bit of it again.

The other times had happened like this, sedately in the stillness of the night, where no one can see. It all feels so far out of the realm of possibilities, but so many parts of his life feel the same way when he has enough courage to look back on them.

“Go to sleep,” Jack mumbles.

Ianto hadn’t even realized that Jack had woken up. His voice is that strange mix of sleepy, affectionate, and exasperated (he claims to have learned it from Ianto, but Ianto is fairly certain that’s untrue) that only happens in the middle of the night when all of Jack’s barriers are reduced to specks of dust on the ground.

“Okay,” he says.

But it isn’t. Not even a little bit. Because he doesn’t know what will happen if he falls asleep, and that terrifies him.


End file.
